Abstract

This article is based on a painting by Los Angeles-based Black artist Mark Bradford, On a Clear Day, I Can Usually See All the Way to Watts (2001), which was exhibited at SFMOMA in an installation that juxtaposed it to a series of drawings by abstract artist Agnes Martin, Untitled (Study for ‘On a Clear Day'), <https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/on-a-clear-day/> (2019–2020). In an extended reading of abstraction and its social implications and of Bradford's engagement with abstract traditions, the article explores the material traces of impurity in his contemporary non-representative visual art. In particular, it focuses on hair as complex sign of impurity, concealment, animality, decay, aesthetic beauty, etc, and of the ways in which its incorporation, materially and metonymically, in the painting disturbs the clarity of the white aesthetic gaze. The article thus considers how the material practices of certain, broadly speaking, postcolonial artists, but in particular the Black Abstraction exemplified by Bradford’s work, challenge the Kantian aesthetic tradition that has dominated the visual arts even in a post-Kantian artistic realm.

摘要

本文基于洛杉矶黑人艺术家马克·布拉德福德 (Mark Bradford) 的画作《在晴朗的日子里，我通常可以一直看到瓦茨》 (2001)，该画作在 SFMOMA 的装置作品中展出，该装置与一系列抽象艺术家艾格尼丝·马丁 (Agnes Martin) 的绘画作品《无题》（《晴朗的日子》研究），<https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/on-a-clear-day/>（2019-2020）。在对抽象及其社会含义以及布拉德福德与抽象传统的接触的扩展阅读中，本文探讨了他当代非代表性视觉艺术中的杂质痕迹。特别是，它关注头发作为杂质、隐藏、动物性、腐烂、审美美等的复杂标志，以及它在绘画中的物质和转喻的结合方式扰乱了白色审美凝视的清晰度。因此，本文考虑了某些广义上的后殖民艺术家的物质实践，特别是布拉德福德作品中所体现的黑色抽象，如何挑战康德美学传统，即使在后康德艺术领域，这种审美传统也主导了视觉艺术。